And it does work, I would have over 150 recorded swimming workouts (45 minutes to an hour each) on my Apple Watch SE.
What do I mean? In hardware manufacturing lines, if you guarantee water immersion, you actually do that test as part of manufacturing, either using real water or something known as "dryleak" where you gauge air displacement in a fitted and known volume fixture.
Apple and most phone manufacturers aren't going bother with that test since it's extra labor and time, so they instead live with never warranting it.
It doesn't take much to have a water ingress issue. Even a tiny tiny defect in the adhesive gasket gluing the phone together can lead to ingress.
They'll argue (maybe rightfully so) that a water resistance rating is not the same as the pressures of swimming. Just dunking something does not do anything such as swimming strokes that could force water into the watch. I find it a little absurd that people won't wash dishes with a 100m resistant watch, but then again, I'm not sporting a 5 figure watch either.